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It was done by an insurance company, they only checked about 5 points! they said the frame is fine.
I still say the frame is not rideable and i am sure because i have a crack in the seatpost (its an integrated one, BH G-1) and it was tested with the seapost! and a few other imperfections places on the carbon.
I was hit by a car.
so actually this test is worthless?

Last edited by Infin1ty on Thu Sep 20, 2007 1:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Infin1ty wrote:It was done by an insurance company, they only checked about 5 points! they said the frame is fine.I still say the frame is not rideable and i am sure because i have a crack in the seatpost (its an integrated one, BH G-1) and a few other imperfections places on the carbon.I was hit by a car.so actually this test is worthless?

If it's an integrated seatpost and has a crack, they should have saved the money of the test! Not rideable to me!

In really thin composite structures (like a bike) I hear that the only reliable way to detect cracks or delamination is with a dye penetrant test. Apparently, it's exactly what it sounds like. The part is soaked in a tagged (UV marker, magnetic, or other) fluid, cleaned, and then illuminated to check for otherwise invisible cracks.

X-Rays will miss small or thin cracks completely, just like when doctors miss bone fractures. Poor contrast, diffraction, and resolution make it difficult.

ScienceIsCool wrote:In really thin composite structures (like a bike) I hear that the only reliable way to detect cracks or delamination is with a dye penetrant test. Apparently, it's exactly what it sounds like. The part is soaked in a tagged (UV marker, magnetic, or other) fluid, cleaned, and then illuminated to check for otherwise invisible cracks.

X-Rays will miss small or thin cracks completely, just like when doctors miss bone fractures. Poor contrast, diffraction, and resolution make it difficult.

John Swanson

Do you have any reference which i can use it against the insurance company? something that will help me in court
I'm sick of them, they took their time for about a year, i'm going to take a lawsuit against them.

They always find "new things", for example, when the car hit me i crashed on my helmet really hard, there is a crack inside the helmet, but outside only minor scratches on the sticker which was removed, now they say because they don't see any big scratches i can use the helmet and it shows i didn't crash. (just to show you how "stupid" they act like).

It's tough, because a lot of the data has not been compiled into a single white paper on detecting damage in thin composites. Not that I know of, anyways. But there is a lot of data, like in the enormous link above. The authors found that the actual damaged area of a tube was 10 times larger than what was found via ultrasound.